RE: Fruit flies as food

["Kent Carpenter" <kcarpen1 at rochester_rr.com>]

Hi Matti:

I have used Drosophilae to condition pairs that I intend to breed
for many years. Jorgen Scheel set aside a large section of his 
fish room to breed them as he felt they closely resembled food
that the killies would experience in the wild. As killies are top
feeders, they soon begin to anticipate a feeding and practically jump
out of the tank to get a fly.

I have bred them in small jars that olives come in that have a narrow
mouth and metal lid. Poke 3 or 4 holes in the lid and stuff them with 
filter floss.

Add potato buds, any brand will do, to the jar to a depth of an inch
or so and add a pinch of dried yeast shaking it up to distribute the
yeast.

In another container I add a few drops of acriflavine to water and add
this to the medium with a baster to the point of getting the medium
damp throughout but not so wet that the flies would drown.

You need to put something in the jar to allow them to stay out of the 
medium, I simply use 3 or 4 popsicle sticks, but anything that they can
walk on and stay dry will do.

The smaller melanogaster (sp) will hatch in about 2 weeks, there is a
larger species that require a month. After patting the jar to get them
off the cap, simply shake a few in each tank as needed, using a few of them
to start a new population. I have kept a setup like this long enough to
get two generations of flies before the medium becomes spoiled, I simply
throw the whole thing away at that point. 

Kent Carpenter



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-killietalk at aka_org [mailto:owner-killietalk at aka_org]On
Behalf Of Matti Pulkkinen
Sent: Sunday, August 10, 2003 4:10 AM
To: killietalk at aka_org
Subject: Fruit flies as food


Dear fellow killi enthusiasts,

I have planned to start to grow wingless fruit flies (Drosophila sp.) as
killi food. I'm trying to find out the best culture media. I can't get
anywhere ready made laboratorium media.  For my purposes the best media is
the least smelly. I have couple of receipts that use banana and yeast.
Unfortunately I strongly dislike the smell of old banana, and the idea of
fermenting banana in my apartment is revolting. My main sources are
Terceira, Anthony C. - Killifish. Their care and breeding. Pisces 1974 and
several laboraratory manuals and yes, Google is very fine too indeed.

All I lack is practical knowledge of Drosophila culture. I would like to
know how those who feed their Killies with Drosophila grow fruit flies. If
you think that the fruit fly is not worth of the trouble it takes, I would
be very gratefull of that information too.

I welcome any experience with fruit flies, good or bad.

Matti Pulkkinen
SKS 61
Helsinki

---------------
See http://www.aka.org/pages/killietalk/subkillietalk.html to unsubscribe
Join the AKA at http://www.aka.org/pages/join.html
---------------
See http://www.aka.org/pages/killietalk/subkillietalk.html to unsubscribe
Join the AKA at http://www.aka.org/pages/join.html